and an amazing choice of food . The trend typically with GenZ is that before they go somewhere , they pre-game . Our intent is to ensure festival-goers enjoy our curation as much possible . We ’ re doing so much , you ’ re paying a whole three days worth of a festival , why not enjoy everything we ’ ve done for you , specifically curated for you at a price you ’ d anyway pay anywhere else ? So , why bother pre-gaming ? Come and pre-game with us . That was the whole idea behind the concept of pre-gaming . I think it kind of worked for us purely because of our collaboration with Impresario . The kind of food and beverage pairing , cocktails encouraged the crowd to come in . If one is ready to spend the same amount of money inside or outside , you might as well spend it inside , inclusive in the ticket .
Nikhil : Our production team also had a large role to play in this as well . Because one of the challenges is , for people who come out to the festival at 3 ’ o clock in the afternoon , it is quite warm . Even in February . We increased shade by 300 % this year at the festival . So , people come in and you were under a sheltered spot while you had a drink or you had a beer , eating a sandwich or a burger or something . There was food specially curated for you . Increasing that shade was a big factor in encouraging people
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12 highonscore . com to come in early because it is a challenge . Anywhere in India , it does get quite warm at 3 ’ o clock in the afternoon . So , our production team did a really good job of getting that extra shade . We also saw a difference . People came in . There was a combination of what we were offering in terms of food , better pricing of drinks and of course the shade that was provided at the festival .
Tell us more about the tech set up and the whole production aspect of the music festival .
Nikhil : Both Gaurav and I come from the philosophy that when we are building a property together , we believe in surrounding ourselves with excellence and letting those people get on with their jobs . We won ’ t be able to give you too many details about what goes on with building the set-up , but we have a very clear vision . When somebody is standing in front of the stage , what is their experience in terms of what height is the stage at , how big is the LED screen , when the lasers sweep and down into the crowd , do they go into your eyes or not . There are a lot of these little touch points that we talk about in the production meetings . Then the production engineers , and the sound and light designers get on with their jobs . So , Gaurav and I explain the vision we have to the team and the team brings that vision to life .
That ’ s the way the process generally goes . We do have minimum requirements of the stage based on what artist ’ s performing on that stage and what ’ s happening on that stage . We have some technical requirements like this year Innellea was doing 3D visuals . So , we needed to get an LED that was seamless , that didn ’ t have an edge . It was built like that . Of course , we get into the usual stuff like CO2 machines , fire machines , and some fireworks . We can ’ t do extensive fireworks because they ’ re quite close to the airport there in Pune . All of those elements sort of just come in .
It ’ s not very complicated but it ’ s exacting . If it needs to happen this way , it needs to happen exactly that way . Especially when you ’ re working with live bands . Every band has a different requirement in terms of the rise of the drum kit , where the base guitarist is going to be , or if there ’ s a keyboard . A lot of hip-hop artists work with DJs so there ’ s a DJ platform that needs to be built that moves in and out of the stage . When you ’ re moving so many elements on and off stage , more often than not , your wing space is as big as stage space . So , all of those elements need to be pre-planned and designed and operated in a way that ’ s seamless . ] We are not only running a festival , but there ’ s